


What Could Be Worse?

by Lanthir44



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hell, Torture, allusions to past emotional neglect and abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 02:36:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8269472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanthir44/pseuds/Lanthir44
Summary: An introspective character study based on Dean's time in Hell.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anthrophobe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthrophobe/gifts).



> I'm not even really in this fandom, but my partner requested a fic, so of course I obliged. It didn't end up having any of the components requested, but an attempt was made.
> 
> Beta read by Anthrophobe.

Dean had tortured before. He wasn't proud of it. Hadn't enjoyed it. But sometimes it needed to be done. Sometimes he really needed the intel, and torture was the only way to get it. Or the only way to get it fast enough. 

Besides, none of them had been human. Dean was good at compartmentalizing who counted as 'real,' and not questioning the criteria his father had taught him too much. If it wasn't human, it wasn't a person, and that was that. So, who really gave a fuck about the occasional torture?

 

It was different in Hell.

 

Hell -- with its scorching flames and bone-numbing cold; its smell of blood and ash, and viscera, and damp metal and stone; its clattering chains and echoing screams, both near and very far; and the slick, wet sounds of flesh, and blades, and whips -- was different from anything Dean had ever experienced before. Hell was different from his darkest nightmares, his worst fears, and his most dreaded expectation of what it might be like.

 

He had thought the pain would be the worst. And for months -- years, maybe -- it was.

Then the temptation began to creep in, slithering unbidden into his mind as sharp as the needles under his fingernails. All he had to do to make the pain stop was to become a torturer himself.

He'd tortured before. Anyone Alistair put in front of him was going to be tortured anyway, regardless of who did it. Fuck, these bastards had all gotten their sorry assess sent to hell somehow. Probably most of them deserved a bit of torturing. So, who really gave a fuck, right?

No. No, these were human souls. People. 'We don't kill people,' Dean reminded himself. 'We don't torture people. Damned souls or not, I don't torture people, I help them.'

He repeated it in his mind over and over, trying and failing to drown out the shameful thoughts that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to give in.

Yeah, the temptation was definitely the worst.

 

Until the day he said yes.

 

Even Dean Winchester could only take so much pain. Years of constant torture -- beyond what would even be possible with a real, physical body -- have a way of wearing you down. The fact that the only physical bodies here were stolen, and probably already dead anyway, made it a little easier. How human, how real, could someone be without a physical body? And, if that put Dean in the same category of 'not real,' well. He was very good at compartmentalizing. Very good at rationalizing until he could do what he had to. 23 years of following his dad's orders had to be good for something.

So he said yes to Alistair. And the demon helped him down off the rack. Congratulated him, while another screaming, pleading soul was chained down in his place.

And it was his place. It shocked Dean how possessive he felt about it. How strange and uncomfortable it felt seeing someone else there. He didn't ever want to be back on the rack, not ever. But he had been there for years. Decades?

His introspection was interrupted by Alistair pressing a knife into his hand. It was so strange, so disorienting, for it to be the handle this time, and not the blade.

After that, the worst part was the guilt.

 

No matter what Dean tried to tell himself, it didn't change the fact that he was torturing human souls. Dean was torturing humans. People. And he was good at it.

He told himself he didn't enjoy the torture -- 'No shame in taking pride in a skill,' Dean thought, 'don't mean I like doing it.' Lying to himself was hardly new. 

It didn't help that Alistair was so attentive. He was free and open with praise in a way that John never had been, always happy to congratulate Dean with a kind word or a pat on the shoulder when he came up with some exceptionally creative new torment to inflict.

And it was even worse when Dean faltered. The first time Dean fell to his knees and retched from the horror of what he was doing, and becoming, he fully expected to be dragged back onto the rack and slowly eviscerated. He wasn't. 

Alistair knelt next to him and rubbed his back. 'Take your time, Dean,' he'd said softly. 'It's a difficult task; you're doing fine. Just let it all out. Catch your breath and we can try again.'

And when Dean wept, Alistair said nothing. And when his breathing had slowed, and the shaking and heaves had subsided, Alistair was there, smiling, and gently pressing the handle of the barbed flail back into Dean's hand.

Sometimes he willingly got back on the rack to be torn to pieces again, trying to force himself to feel penitent. Sometimes it was just to make Alistair smile, because giving and receiving suffering was all Dean had ever known. It never helped.

 

The worst part, Dean thought -- worse than the fear, the pain, the temptation, the guilt -- the worst part, really, was getting used to it all.


End file.
